Our outing today was back to Canterbury, to have lunch at The Goods Shed. As the name suggests it's adjacent to the train station. The large shed is largely a providore but also has a raised restaurant, where we successfully ate and drank too much.
This led to another nap in the afternoon. Late in ther day we went for another walk along the sea front.
Another nice sunny day and we're gradually sleeping better. Our original plans were thrown by uncertainty about the missing suitcase and whether it'd be delivered today, so we decided to stay closer to home in case we were contacted.
First we drove west along the coast through Herne Bay township, Whitstable and Seasalter to Faversham, or at least the outskirts. I have a long list of places to visit in Kent, and one was Macknades, a gourmet cafe and food shop. So we stocked up and had morning tea in the cafe before driving back for lunch, to find the suitcase had been delivered already.
In the afternoon we went east. First to a shopping centre to Lynn could spend time in Marks and Spencer. Then on to Ramsgate, which has a nice port but is otherwise fairly crowded and industrial. There were meant to be small boats gathering for next week's 80th anniversary of the Dinkirk evacuation, but we couldn't distinguish anything.
Another pleasant and sunny day, so late morning we went into Canterbury. The reason was so Lynn could go to the bank and get her app sorted out, but it was a nice excuse for a walk around. Which was lucky, because the bank wasn't very helpful and the problem wasn't solved.
So we walked down the main shopping area, and then through the gardens along the River Stour which was full of people sitting in the sunshine.
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| Great Stour from St Peters St. |
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| Westgate Gardens with Jacqui Harris |
After my last post yesterday we flew the ten-and-a-but hours to Istanbul. On an A350 and a bit newer than the first leg to Malaysia. And because Lynn and I were across the aisle from each other we didn't have to climb over each other to get out of our seats. It left KL a bit after midnight and fortunately we got a reasonable sleep after a quick meal. It flew west over India, Pakistan, Iran and Turkeye.
Istanbul turned out to be a very large, very busy airport. The formalities were straightforward - getting through the 'transfers' area to the main terminal. We walked for 20 minutes to a help desk to be told they couldn't help swap our seats around for the next flight. Then 20 minutes back to find a lounge, where we hoped to have a shower as we were feeling pretty run down by this point. Turned out that there was an hour wait for the showers, so we gave up and walked 20 minutes back to the gate and by this point it was boarding. Fortunately the last leg was only about four hours and after a breakfast we were able to sleep an hour or so and woke when we were ready to land.
Disembarking and getting through the formalities was quick and easy - it's all automated now and we didn'tspeak to anyone. Unfortunately, when waiting for our bags Lynn checked the location of the airtags we use and found that one bag was still in Istanbul. So we waited to get our remaining bags (which took a while) and then talked to the helpdesk who seemed unsurprised, quickly located the bag and said it was on the next plane and would be delivered to us sometime in the coming days.
We were collected by Lynn's patient cousin, Tom, and driven two hours to Herne Bay in Kent. We arrived at about 1pm and 35 hours after leaving our home. The afternoon has been spent sitting in their conservatory on a fine and mild day - hopefully weather than will continue. Too befuddled to do much more and expecting the jet lag to overwhelm us at any time.
Currently sitting in sa lounge in KLIA, so the day is far from over. But we have a long break here and I suppose will get progressively more tired and less motivated. Our route today means three legs, which is the cheapest way right now, but feels a lot longer than the two legs on most previous routes.
We started with a 9.50 flight from Adelaide - and were obviously at the airport a couple of hours early, which was a bit boring but the alternative was to sit at home waiting so it was probably the lesser of the evils. It's seven hours to KL which is not too bad, but long enough to get bored. No turbulence, but there never is these days so all flights are kind of good. (That's my experience, I think statistically that climate change is making turbulence a bit worse but this is balanced out by the more sophisticated flight routing.) The route curves up over WA and leaves the coast just east of Port Hedland.
The business class seats were okay. A bit narrow, and there were touch buttons in two places to recline the seats, both of which I continually brushed with my elbow so the seat would jerk and twice I triggered the massage function, which I discovered when the seat started to inflate beneath me. After a while they served lunch and then turned the lights off and almost everyone had a nap. This suited us as we'd been up early. It also meant that it feels like we've been travelling a day or so already.
In KLIA we had a wander then took the bus to the main terminal (this took a long time as it's usually a train and I panicked and thought we were going the long way, thus delaying everything). At the main terminal we found that the lounge we were going to no longer services Turkish Airlines, our next carrier, so we had to come back to the satellite terminal. And here we are, eating and drinking and killing time for another 5-6 hours until the next leg.
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| Plaza Premium Lounge, KL |
Traveling again. But our flight wasn't until nearly 6pm, do hurry up and wait. We mostly sat around all morning. Well, I did, while Lynn...
